Kodiak Bear Paw Quilters Annual Quilt Show

The Kodiak Bear paw Quilters hold a quilt show every year.  The show is Saturday and Sunday, October 8th and 9th, at the Kodiak High School auditorium Foyer.  These are my entries. The photo above is called Big Dipper.  It is 21.5 x 20.  This piece started out with a piece of hand dyed fabric.  I had a block left over from a reduction print I made in Liz Mitchell's print workshop, with which I printed the distant mountains.   I decided to extend the mountains beyond the silk border.  The gradations in the border are hand dyed.  I originally printed the stars with gold Lumiere paint, but they weren't  as bright as I wanted, so I stitched with gold metallic thread.  This is the quilt that led me to a thread crisis about a month ago.  I ran out of thread with only 12" of the border left to quilt!  I asked the wrong daughter to quickly send me thread!

 This quilt is 15 x 20 and is called Joy.  The print is an Alutiq petroglyph.  She is actually the only recognizable female figure.  Arms upraised signifies dancing.  Although I am not Alaskan Native, she is my Goddess.  The people who carved these images in the rocks many, many years ago, came to this island from someplace else and made it their home, just like I have.  I was not born here, but after 35 years, I am from here.

 Alaskan Sky is 21 x 12.5.  This piece shows one more stage of the reduction print.  The stars and the Northern Lights were printed first, then that was cut away, and the mountains were printed.  I really like that the red border does not extend into the mountains, making them look more authentic.  The gradations in the border are hand dyed.

 Kings is 15.5 x 20.  One morning, I just decided to start cutting this print up and inserted strips thinking sea grass.  I was happy with the layering effect, and though everything matched up quite well for freeform work.  I don't normally do alot of hand embroidery-I am pretty much hooked on beads, but the stitching on this piece was fun and I am pleased with the results.  I used 3 stands of red embroidery thread on the distant blades, and  hand dyed purple Size 5 pearl cotton on the closer blades.  I will not try that again-multiple layers of pimatex is not easy to pull that thick of a thread through.  I used hand dyed size 12 pearl cotton to outline the starfish, which turned out great.  I bought both of those thread at Visions in San Diego last Spring.  Then, of course the required beads and buttons were added.  I used higher contrast thread than I normally do.  I have thought that my stitching gets lost when i use lower contrast thread, but I am not all that great of a stitcher.  Of course, when my thread really show is when my sewing machine started misbehaving and eating the thread.  I tried new needles, rethreaded, put on some thread treatment.  She just was angry with me that day, I guess.  Our first bad day!

 A close-up of my starfish and button creatures.

Over the Mountains is 12 x 12, with a portrait quilt measuring 4 x 6.  I posted about this piece several months ago.  i wasn't happy with the placement of the mini quilt.  I moved it around for months, then I read somewhere to leave blank space in the upper left corner, which works for me.  This is my donation for the silent auction.

I have been playing with Decolorant and paint with stencils this week, as a means of procrastinating binding and hanging sleeves!  I had some ugly scarves that I experimented with.  I used spray decolorant on one which was a mistake-it crept under the stencil.  Then I did three with plain decolorant paste.  I was working on a table with batting, covered with plastic.  I guess paper or cotton underneath would be better.  The paste went through the scarf and seemed to just sit there on the plastic.  You can't move the scarf until it is dry, also.  Anyway, one of those is beautiful.  Then, I used yellow Decolorant and a leaf stencil on a red scarf.  That one is pretty awesome.  Finally, I printed Lumiere paing with a stencil.  those turned out OK, but it is hard to apply the correct amount of paint.  Tomorrow, I will take some photos and post them.

And I almost forgot-my SAQA Auction quilt sold for $250.  Of course, there was family politics involved-it was purchased the Aunt of my daughter, Kristin's, fiance.  All the same it sold for a good price and I wasn't shamed by having it sent back like last year. 

Early Morning

For me, today was an early morning.  Since I work nights, I tend to lounge around in the morning, but today I jumped out of bed and got to work.  I had this piece laid out already.  I changed the mountains in the foreground several times before I settled on this fabric.  I need more dark and toned fabrics!  Going through fabrics looking for mountains, I realized that the majority of my fabric is medium shades.  Although I do like the gradation in the border, it is not very uniform-by that I mean that there are unexpected gaps-one of the things of working with handdyed fabric.  There is so much variation in the fabric, often I have a piece sewn in before I realize that it is not quite right.  I really like the narrow red border, and the way it lies behind the hills in the foreground.

It is time to start quilting.  I have 5 pieces ready to quilt.  I have been procrastinating.  Figuring out how to stitch a piece is always a bit intimidating for me.  But, my stitching improves when I quilt several quilts in succession so I choose the one that I care about the least to start with, and by the time I get to the piece that I am the most invested in, my stitches are uniform and sortof beautiful.

Liz Mitchell Printmaking Workshop

Last weekend I had the opportunity to take another printmaking workshop, this time with a local artist named Liz Mitchell.  The picture above is a reduction print.  First I carved away the stars and printed with red and orange.  Next I carved away the Northern Lights and printed with blue.  Next I cut away everything but the mountains and printed with black.  We were printing with water soluble block printing ink.  I am not at all happy with the hand of the fabric and I am sure it is not permanent.  But, I believe that after it cures for a couple of weeks, it will be as permanent as it needs to be.  My worry is about stitching through three layers of paint.  Cool, but probably not a great technique for fiber even with different ink.

 I also carved this little bird.  Last summer my husband put a piece of plywood down on our front porch and covered it with bird seed.  What a mess, but so cool.  At any point in the day, there would be up to 20 little birds gathered.  This guy amongst them.  I didn't get any great prints in class.  The one above was about the best.  At home yesterday, I printed some more.  I wasn't happy with the eye and tried to carve it deeper-disaster!!  I destroyed my block.  Luckily I had another piece of linoleum so I recarved him.  The really stupid part is that I carved away the eye again!  Luckily with some E6000 I was able to glue the piece back in.  You can see the results below.  I tend to carve too deeply in the area directly surrounding the subject of the print.  Something to watch for next time.

 Now that I have printed this edition. with a background, I cut away the backgroud and have just the bird to print.  That is where the fun really begins!

These are prints I made with just the mountain that was left from my reduction print.  The contrast on the darker pieces is less than what I would like, but stitching will remedy that.  Now I just have to find an ink that I like.  The oil base ink that I used in the previous workshop I attended is permanent, and has a good hand but is difficult to work with and needs solvents for cleanup.  The water based inks are not permanent, dry very quickly on the plate so you have to work fast, and I don't like the feel of the paint on the fabric.  I have tried Versatex screen printing ink for fabric, and Jacquard fabric paints but they are too thin.  Any suggestions?